3 Steps to Data Mining

Data mining. It is the foundation of great personalized marketing, but it strikes fear into the hearts of many marketers. The reality is that this fear is unfounded since data mining is well within the grasp of any sized marketer. 

Let’s break it down into three simple steps.  

1. Find out what’s in there. 

The first step is to understand the field headings in your database. Most databases have basic information like name, address and purchase history. Are you also capturing information such as age, gender and home ownership? What data do you actually have?

2. Ask questions. 

Knowing what data you have tells you the types of queries you can run. Running queries simply means asking questions of the data. If you are a retailer you might ask, “Which customers purchased hardwood flooring last month?” If you know that these customers are also likely to purchase area rugs and floor conditioning products, this gives you a great start.

3. Look for relationships. 

The next step is to run data sorts. Is there a relationship between hardwood flooring and gender? How about income? Are customers more likely to purchase hardwood flooring at different times of year than others? 

Even basic software like Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Access provides sorting capabilities. Or you might want to purchase add-on data mining modules or third-party software. If you need to outsource, there are plenty of companies that specialize in this process for very reasonable costs.

Get Curious!

So get curious. Take a few hours to run a variety of sorts just to see what you can find. 

Once you know what’s in your data, you’ve asked questions of your data, and discovered relationships within the data, it’s time to act on what you find. That curiosity could make a big difference to the bottom line.

Case Studies: Consumers Use QR Codes

QR Codes give shoppers and other consumers access marketing or product information from their mobile phones, but do consumers actually prefer them? Will they scan these codes when other ways to access the information are available? For many, the answer is yes!

Let’s look at three real-life examples: 

1. One marketer sent a holiday card to its customers with an invitation to login to a personalized URL to select a charity to receive a donation in their name. Of those responding to the campaign, 11% chose to log in by scanning a QR Code rather than typing in the personalized URL.

2. An online educational institution serving the high school market wanted to boost enrollment. It sent a promotional campaign inviting students and their parents to log in to a personalized URL to learn more about online education and enter a sweepstakes to win an iPad2.  More than one-third (37%) of the logins came via QR Code.

3. In order to refresh its retail location, an herbal supplements and vitamin company wanted to find out what products and services its customers were looking for that might be missing from its existing mix. To find out, it sent a survey via personalized URL to nearly 20,000 contacts. QR Code scans accounted for almost 20% of all PURL visitors.

We could give lots more examples, but you get the idea. People love mobile, but they don’t love typing in long web addresses. If you provide them with a way to skip right to the content they are looking for, they’ll very likely to take it, especially when they are responding to a personalized URL campaign. That’s a huge benefit of QR Codes. 

This can also lead to an elevated response rate to the overall campaign. Why? Because the easier it is to respond to a marketing message (including multiple ways to respond), the more responses you’re going to get.  

Avoid a Font-O-Rama

We’ve all seen documents that use more fonts per square inch than legibility (let alone aesthetics) can handle, resulting in a garish “font-o-rama.” This not only looks unprofessional, but it serves as a barrier to marketing success. Good typography equals good communication. 

Graphic designers understand that type often obeys the law of engineering, “form follows function.” That is, a typeface should be appropriate to what the typesetter designed it to do. At the same time, that form needs to be aesthetically pleasing. The basis of good typographic design is balancing the “logistic” requirements of the document with what is pleasing and attractive.

For example, Bell Gothic was designed in 1938 to improve the legibility of phone directories, as well as provide economy of space. Frutiger was designed to make airport signage easy to read from a distance. Interstate, which was derived from Highway Gothic (the official font of the U.S. Highway Administration), served the same purpose for U.S. highways. Courier inspires a sense of nostalgia. 

(For more on the history of Western Typefaces, click here.)

When choosing a font, think like a designer and choose a font appropriate to the task at hand. It’s like clothing. What we wear should be appropriate to the weather as well as to the context (formal versus casual), but also be attractive. Just as with clothing, some fonts look dated and scream “1970s,” the typographic equivalent of a plaid leisure suit.

Typefaces, like anything else, go in and out of fashion. While it’s tempting to think that no one really pays close attention to fonts, there is often an unconscious visceral reaction to bad type, not unlike the unconscious reactions that we have to poor color combinations or out-of-date clothing. 

Understanding how font choice affects the perception and reception of a document is one of the crucial elements to good design. You should not treat it lightly. If you need help, we can recommend a good designer to help you. 

Every font tells a story—is it the story you and your client want to tell? Or do you want people to say, “Your mother dresses you funny”?

QR Codes Add Interactivity to Print

What if you could put interactivity into your printing at essentially no cost? Sound too good to be true? Then you haven’t heard about QR Codes. 

You may have seen them in magazine ads or on billboards. Increasingly, they are showing up on business cards and marketing collateral. Even in email. When your customers scan these codes with their cellphone cameras, something interactive happens. They are taken to a website. They access a coupon. They see a video. 

QR Codes act as an immediate response mechanism for your print ads, bulletin boards, marketing collateral, and corporate identity materials. People don’t need to wait until they get home or back to the office. They can access the content right where they are. 

Because QR Codes are simply 2D barcodes, they cost nothing to produce and add to your print materials. In a free QR Code generator like Kaywa or Inigma, simply enter the URL to which you want people to be sent, hit “get code,” and insert the resulting .jpg or .png into the layout. Yes, it’s that easy. 

Here are some places you can add QR Codes to spice up previously static print items: 

• Sell sheets. Send people to a YouTube video to see a demo of the product.
• Business cards and letterhead. Let customers add your contact information to their phones with a single click.
• Trade show materials. Allow booth visitors to see your entire product line and pricing right from the trade show floor!
• Window clings. Give passersby access to discount codes that encourage them to come in and buy. Or let them connect with you on Facebook or Twitter.
• Direct mail pieces. Make it easy to sign up for sweepstakes, access location maps or discounts, or add events to their calendars.   

The possibilities are endless. The best news is, QR Codes are free!

Steps to Writing Great Marketing Copy

Want to boost the effectiveness of your marketing? Techniques like 1:1 personalization, trigger-based delivery, and multi-channel marketing are a great foundation. But even these won’t amount to much if they aren’t paired with something equally important. That’s good marketing copy. 

Here are some fundamental principles of writing great copy that will help your message command attention: 

• Be imaginative. It’s easy to say the same thing in the same way all the time. Break out of the mold. Look for unconventional ways to present your message.
  
• Be a salesman. Cute and clever doesn’t get you anywhere by itself. Your copy still has to motivate recipients to take action. Be creative, but also be clear. Sell benefits. Give an overt call to action.
  
• Put the customer front and center. Make the customer the center of the message. Talk about their problems, their challenges, and their bottlenecks. Let them identify with the message, then talk about how your products and services make life better.  
• Build trust. Part of building a brand and gaining repeat customers is establishing loyalty and trust. Represent your products in a way that is accurate, helpful, and maintains your customers’ confidence.
  
• Hire a professional editor. Make sure your copy meets professional standards. Someone who is “good at grammar” isn’t sufficient. When it comes to marketing, there are rules for punctuation, capitalization, and usage that only professionals know. Make sure you are using them. 

Of course, there are other elements to great print marketing, as well. Good layout. Interesting graphics. Compelling offer. But great copy ties it all together. 

Consumers Willing to Give Up Data for Benefits

Retail. Banking. Healthcare. Who do we trust more with our personal data? It all depends on who can give us more benefits. 

These are the conclusions of a survey of 5,000 digital consumers in five countries conducted by Infosys. The survey found that, of all global consumers, U.S. consumers are the most comfortable sharing their personal information. 

For example:

• 89% of U.S. consumers are willing to share personal information while making a purchase online.
  
• 83% are willing to share personal information when interacting with their bank online.
  
• 77% are willing to share personal information when interacting with their regular doctor’s office online. 

As more and more companies integrate online and offline (print) data, this willingness to share personal data, regardless of channel, is a huge benefit. This positively impacts every aspect of companies’ multi-channel marketing efforts. 

But if you’re selling “across the pond,” don’t look for quite the same openness. British consumers are less willing to share their personal information (especially with their doctors), and if you’re marketing into France, they are even less so. Only 75% of French consumers are willing to share personal information with online retailers, dropping to 62% for banks and 60% with doctors. 

But still, even for these more skeptical consumers, these numbers are pretty darn good. Consequently, even these data are good news for marketers. Consumers are simply more and more willing to give up data if they get something in return. 

Source: Engaging with Digital Consumers (Infosys, 2013)

1:1 Campaigns Are Easier Than Ever

It used to be that, in order to create powerful 1:1 print campaigns, you had to be both a marketing wizard and a database master. No more. Today, the software does much of the database work for you. The secret is in the Web portal where your content, your templates, and your data are maintained in a centralized location with easy-to-use interfaces. 

The process starts by brainstorming a marketing project and working with us to set up the rules, develop layouts, and pre-approve content, such as text blocks, images, and databases. Then you (or anyone in your company you choose to give access to) can log in, make selections about what is to be included in the marketing piece, and click “OK.” 

If the user wants to customize the piece (change colors, headlines, or other elements), this can be done within pre-set limits that you determine. Personalization can often be applied by using drop-down menus that, with a little training, anyone in your staff can use. Once the project is complete, you check out as you would at any other online store. 

Making 1:1 marketing easier is that, using templates and rules, the person ordering the marketing materials isn’t necessarily the same person who designs it. With everything pre-defined, the order process is straightforward and simple, even for novice users. Often, all you have to do is fill out basic information and use the drop-down menus provided for you. 

Elements are flowed in, the rules applied, and the piece produced and shipped to the right location automatically.

This workflow requires a time investment to set up, but we’ll be there to help you. 

What’s important to understand is that the barriers to entry are lowering for 1:1 print marketing. Software has come a long way, and it’s making personalization easier and more accessible than ever. 

Don’t Overlook Your Employees

When it comes to personalized printing, marketers’ primary focus is on customers . . . as well it should be.  The use of data to increase relevance, drive conversions, and increase audience engagement is one of the primary benefits of this technology. But have you ever thought about using the same benefits of personalized print communications to serve your own internal audience—your employees? 

1to1 Magazine recently published an interesting article called “Beyond the Suggestion Box” talking about the importance of employee engagement. While the topic might sound mundane, it is actually a critical issue. Employee engagement and company profitability are closely tied. The more engaged a company’s employees are, the more profitable it tends to be. 

Despite this connection . . . 

• Only one-quarter of employees at large companies are highly engaged (The Temkin Group)
• 18% of full-time workers in the U.S. are actively disengaged in their work; and 
• 52% are not involved in, enthusiastic about, or committed to their work (Gallup)

These low levels of engagement should be a real concern to U.S. businesses. Fortunately, there are some steps you can take to improve the engagement of your employees within your organization. If engagement is already high, these same steps can help it grow even more. 

Ask their opinion.  Use printed surveys or for topics on which employees may want credit for their input and ideas, you may want to use personalized URLs.

Send individualized cards and gifts on birthdays, anniversaries (including anniversary of their employment start date), and other special occasions. 

Publicize how their input and the input of others is being acted upon. Use newsletters, posters, and other print communications to spread the word and let them know that their opinions being heard. 

Personalized printing is a valuable tool for communicating with your most important audiences. Your employees should be one of them! 

Link to the original article: http://www.1to1media.com/view.aspx?docid=34457

Make It Funny - Make It Stick

Is your marketing funny? Maybe it should be. (At least sometimes.) Humor is a great way to differentiate your product or service, making your message memorable and increasing your visibility. At the same time, you must balance humor with marketing information. Otherwise your prospects will remember the gag and forget the product. 

Here are some tips for giving your business-as-usual communications the power of funny. 

Keep humor in its place. Make your product or service front and center. Use humor to get the customer to stick around long enough to hear your message, but the laughter should enhance your marketing goals, not overwhelm them.

Funny is subjective. Different demographics find humor in different things, so know your audience’s funny bone. Should it be slapstick or sophisticated? Laugh-out-loud or subtly clever?

Print can be funny, too. In print, humor can be visual, so the biggest laughs might come from how punctuation paces a sentence or how a graphic makes the reader do a double take. 

Don’t take aim at your target customers. The joke is always funnier if it is on someone else. Humor should never come at the expense of the person holding the piece. 

Remove the color. Keep the color in your fonts and graphics. In your marketing, stay away from off-color jokes and innuendo. Keep it clean.

Follow cross-cultural rules, even at home. We live in a multi-cultural world, and cultural gaps can exist anywhere there is diversity. Be wary of colloquialisms and variations in the meaning of words, even in different geographic areas of your own country.

Funny marketing attracts customers by creating a positive association with your brand. When used correctly, humor is an important tool for getting your message heard. Don’t knock-knock it until you’ve tried it.

Learning the Basics of Great Campaigns

1:1 printing. Personalized URLs. Multi-channel marketing. Today’s marketing strategy is a lot to absorb. Not surprisingly, when clients are transitioning from traditional marketing to personalized, on-demand, or multi-channel strategies, one of the questions we most often get is, "How do I learn all this? How do I get started?” 

First, we can help you. That’s part of our job. But if you want to delve into the learning process on your own, there are some simple steps you can take. Start by remembering than any campaign is made up of multiple elements. These elements include (but are not limited to) . . . 

• Business objective
• List (in-house or purchased, level of demographic refinement)
• Additional targeting (segmentation, personalization)
• Marketing offer
• Creative (graphics and copy)
• Programming (if necessary)
• Integration with other marketing channels (email, social, mobile, web, out of home)
• Results tracking 

With these elements in mind, every time you attend a trade show event, read a case study, attend a webinar, or peruse a blog post or magazine article with customer stories, do a quick mental rundown on this list. Pick out each of the elements, identify how each was handled in the campaign (whether well or poorly), and notate how the details of the implementation likely impacted the results. 

Go through each case study or customer story strategically and methodically, filling out the mental checklist on each one. Think of it as a self-paced course. Even after the first dozen or so, you will start to see patterns come together and have those “Ah, ha!” moments. You will start to see how the elements synergize, where certain elements are missing, or where poorly implemented (or under-implemented) elements caused the campaign to stumble. 

Try it. You might be surprised how quickly this simple exercise can pay off in spades. 

How to Create Effective Sales Literature

Looking to freshen up your sales literature? Think carefully and create a plan. Sales literature stands in for you when you’re not around, carrying your brand identity and reputation to the marketplace. It plays a critical role in your business and needs to be planned out carefully.

Start by investing in good design. Eye-catching layouts grab attention, and provocative headlines and compelling text convince the reader to hear you out. Keep your production cutting edge and the marketing content fresh. If you cut corners on printing or circulate out-of-date information, your prospects might subconsciously conclude that you produce cheap, outdated products too.

Tie each printed piece to a goal in your overall marketing plan. Is the objective to drive new sales, cross-sell to existing customers, or communicate better with your stakeholders? The appropriate format (postcard, circular, product data sheet, package insert, newsletter) will naturally follow. Combinations of different elements—paper types, colors, repetition—can produce powerful subliminal effects, so it is important that you work with a professional designer. 

Consider portability. An oversized piece might gain attention, but what will make someone pick up your piece and take it with them and then pass it along to others?

Communicate directly and succinctly about what you are offering, what is in it for the reader, and what action the reader should take. It’s tempting to overload your documents with every capability and feature you offer, but this can overwhelm and disengage someone who is just learning about you. As they move through the sales funnel, you can introduce more complex printed collateral. At this stage, however, the content should be just intriguing enough and the call to action persuasive enough to inspire the reader to initiate further discussion.

Even the best sales collateral isn’t going to close the sale by itself. What it will do is provide outstanding sales support, reinforce your message, and stay behind as your brand messenger. So pay attention to your sales literature and give it the attention it deserves. 

QR Codes Being Scanned at Home

Want to hear a surprising statistic? New research by Nielsen (“Mobile Shopping Report” 2013) shows that two-thirds of smartphone shoppers and four out of five shoppers on tablets do their shopping at home.  

That’s right — they are using their mobile devices to shop right from their couches.  

Not only this, but these “mobile at home” shoppers are more likely than not to make their actual purchases from home, too. Ninety-five percent of tablet shoppers and 72% of smartphone shoppers who make a purchase do so from home, according to the study.

This is yet another reason to incorporate QR Codes with back-end shopping content or links into your printed marketing materials. 

In fact, in a 2011 MobiLens study that is still reflects consumers’ mobile behavior today, comScore found that 60% of people scanned QR Codes from home. The most popular hours of scanning? Midday and early evening between the hours of 3 p.m and 7 p.m.

So if you think QR Codes are not relevant to your marketing because your customers mostly shop at home (where they might prefer other channels, such as print catalog or laptop), think again. In fact, QR Codes could become one of your most powerful tools for motivating shoppers to do a little retail therapy as they unwind and decompress from a hectic day at work.  

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/206585/most-mobile-shoppers-found-at-home.html

Scan this QR Code to go to Lakes Print's mobile website to learn the importance of mobile and how to incorporate QR codes into your print and mobile marketing strategy.

5 Reasons Print Still Rocks

Is print still relevant in today’s world of ubiquitous electronic media? Yes! Here are a few reasons not to overlook when you are planning your next marketing campaign.

1. Print adds a dimension to the media experience not possible with digital media.Print is warm and inviting. You can create dazzling special effects that make readers want to touch and feel your message thanks to a new generation of papers, inks, varnishes and coatings. It’s a tangible dimension that electronic media can’t impart.
   
2. Print is universally accessible.Printed documents don’t have batteries that run down, they can easily be read even in direct sunlight, and they can be read even in locations where wireless is not available, such as subway stations and airplanes.
   
3. Certain demographics don’t go online.Some demographic groups, particularly older consumers, simply prefer print collateral over digital options. In some cases, print may be the only way they research their options. Don’t overlook the disposable income of this demographic group!
   
4. Consumers are multi-channel.When looking to make a purchase, today’s media-savvy consumers seek multiple sources of information. Rarely will they use online only or print only. They seek out multiple media and compare and contrast responses. Print is a critical part of that mix.
   
   
5. Print is more trusted for high-dollar purchases.Consumers love electronic media for its immediacy, but research shows that they seek print when it’s time to buy. Web technologies provide quick answers, but the responses are often contradictory. Print shows that you found your message to be important enough to commit it to paper and you stand behind what you’re saying. 

Overlooking the role of print can prove fatal to a marketing campaign. If your objective is to inform, teach, persuade or entertain, print marketing is a must.

5 Reasons to Care about Infographics

According to IDG’s B2B Content Marketing Trends survey, infographics are the fastest growing content type on the web. Twenty-percent of B2B companies say they are using infographics as part of their content marketing efforts. This is up 150% over year over year. There is no mystery why. 

1. Infographics are easy to understand.

Few people have time to sit down and read anymore. However, the busiest people will often look at infographics even when they won’t read anything else. 

2. Your customers are visual. 

In general, human beings are wired to absorb information faster and more easily visually than by reading text. Infographics offer the power of visual learning. 

3. Infographics make data easier to absorb.

Because complex information can be communicated more easily in graphic form, infographics are the perfect way to present large amounts of data. 

4. Infographics boost SEO. 

According to Google, searches for infographics are up 800% 2011-2012. Adorn your infographics with descriptions, captions, and alt tags and they are very likely to get found. 

5. Infographics improve viral sharing. 

People love to share information via social media, and infographics make great viral content. If you post them, your customers are likely to Tweet, like, Pin, and otherwise share them.  

Although infographics are primarily an online content medium, they benefit your print design, as well. The elements you develop to create great infographics can be used in other print media.  Plus, you may also want your print materials such as direct mail, brochures, and marketing collateral to be influenced by the infographics style — less text, more data, and heavier emphasis on conceptual design elements that communicate information in visual form. 

Want to grab attention and help customers retain information better? Think infographics!

http://www.slideshare.net/hschulze/b2b-content-marketing-trends-2012

Using Google Analytics to Track Your Progress

If it was your New Year’s resolution to improve the effectiveness of your marketing, how do you determine if it’s working? Since one of the benefits of 1:1 print marketing is the ability to drive traffic to your website, one of the ways to determine success is to use Google Analytics and similar tools to monitor your Web activity. 

Online analytics tools are about more than the number of visitors to your site. They can tell you where these visitors are coming from, how long they stay, which sites or search engines are driving the most traffic, and more. 

In addition to basic site traffic, let’s look at some of the metrics Google Analytics offers. 

• Absolute unique visits. Number of individual visitors (as contrasted with people who might be visiting the site more than once). 
• Page views / average page views. When people come to your site, how many pages do they click on before they leave? 
• Time on site. Once people hit your site, how long do they stay? Are they taking the time to read the content? Or clicking out right away? 
• Traffic sources. Where are your visitors coming from? Are they typing in your URL directly? Coming from referring sites? Search engines? If the latter, which ones? What keywords are they using? 
• Page navigation. Did people land on each page directly? Or did they click through another page to get there? After viewing the content, did they click through to more pages? Or leave the site? 

What can you learn from this type of information? 

If you’re running a specific 1:1 printing campaign, for example, you can watch how effective it is for driving website traffic—how quickly traffic peaks and how high. 

Once people land on your main URL, if they leave without clicking through to other pages, it might tell you that you need to improve the relevance of your index page or make the content more compelling. 

If you know the keywords being used to drive the most traffic from search engines, you can use this information in your SEO (search engine optimization) efforts. 

If you track which pages people are landing on or clicking through most often, you can add content or links to those pages to maximize your message. 

You make a significant investment in 1:1 print marketing, so maximize every dollar you spend. Once you’ve driven people to your website, free metrics tools can help you sharpen your message and improve site relevance, navigation, and functionality. You will capture more site visitors, hold them, and ultimately drive more conversion to sales. 

Elements of a Successful Cross-Media Campaign

Want to energize your print campaign? Add demographic or psychographic segmentation and personalization. Want to energize your print campaign even more? Combine print with other media to amplify its effect.

The most common cross-media campaigns these days are print and e-mail, but you might also want to consider banner ads, social media, SMS text messaging, search engine advertising and other avenues that complement print. Each will have different uses and benefits, depending on your marketing goals and the target demographic you are trying to reach.

Here are some basic rules to keep in mind:

1. Consistent branding across all media.

Different media have different requirements and limitations, so you aren’t going to be able to maintain 100% consistency all the time. But whenever possible, try to use the same images, color schemes, messaging and other elements across media.

2. Strategic application of media.

Know what role, specifically, each medium is supposed to play. If you are going to combine e-mail with print, what are you trying to accomplish? Are you trying to “prime the pump” for the print piece? Are you using e-mail as a follow-up? Maybe if you’re driving traffic to a campaign-specific website, you might want to consider Internet banner advertising in demographic “hot spots.” The key is to match the medium to the audience and the message so that each medium plays off the other’s strengths.

3. Appropriate matching of media to the audience.

Ensure that you use the right medium to communicate with each target audience. Not all media are appropriate for every demographic. You’re not going to reach many senior citizens with SMS, for example. Plus, the mix is always changing. For example, only teenagers and college students used to use Facebook, but increasingly professionals and businesses use it as well.

Identify your marketing objectives, and then ensure that each medium is the right one to accomplish those goals. Make sure that you match the medium to your demographic and your offer, and use it appropriately within the best practices of that medium.

There is a learning curve associated with multi-channel marketing, but the ability to amplify and reinforce your marketing message can be invaluable.

Just Try a Letter!

When you are looking to get a great response to a print marketing campaign, have you ever considered just sending a direct mail letter? Marketing experts have begun to advocate a return to this simple but effective approach. 

Letters have an emotional appeal that doesn’t come from a postcard, a trifold, or even the most beautifully designed brochure. There is something about the personal connection that is made between the sender to the recipient when communicated in natural language in a way that’s easy to understand and relate to. 

Letters are inexpensive to print and mail, but they can be profoundly effective when done well. 

Here are some thoughts on letter writing and how to do it in very effectively.  

1. It has to be great. 

An average letter will not do the trick. You need to tell a great story, provide a compelling offer, and do it really, really well. This may mean hiring a copy writer, but it’s worth the effort. 

2. Keep it simple. 

Sometimes the most simple letters are the most effective. One marketing agency encouraged its client, Ford of Canada, to send a letter saying, “This letter is worth $1,500 to you when you buy or lease a brand new Lincoln.” Over a six-month period, that letter was responsible for the sales of about half the Lincolns in Canada.

3.  Make it as personal as possible. 

Be sincere. Use natural language. Affix real stamps on the envelope—or maybe even two. This alone can boost response rates significantly. 

This is not about being fancy. It’s about making a real, emotional connection with your audience. Sometimes a fancy, full-color, high-gloss mailer or multi-channel marketing campaign is the right tool for the job. But sometimes a simple, but very well written letter will be just as effective — or more. 

* Any reuse of this is forbidden without prior written consent. This content is protected by copyright law. 

Don’t Be Afraid to Say You’re Sorry

When most of us mess up, we’re likely to try to hide it from view. Especially in business, we don’t want our customers to know we’ve made a mistake. But sometimes a simple, personalized letter of apology can be a powerful tool to boost sales and cement customer relationships. 

In a recent blog post, one Forbes contributor tells the story of how a client used a simple direct mail letter to apologize to hundreds of thousands of customers so well, so sincerely, that the company ended up selling more merchandise than it would have without sending the apology letter. 

Why do apology letters work? 

1. They make us human. 

People like to do business with people, not companies. When you apologize for a mistake, especially addressing the person by name and including personal, relevant details to them, it humanizes your company and creates empathy. When done well, it can actually improve the customer relationship. 

2. They make us credible. 

People don’t like to apologize. When a company apologizes, it gets a customer’s attention. That can give you tremendous credibility that can build trust.   

2. It gives you an opportunity to make right. 

Everybody likes when a wrong is made right. Once you’ve got a customer’s attention, a sincere apology letter can turn the mistake into an opportunity to make things right and further cement customer loyalty. 

Apologies aren’t for every situation, but when it merits, don’t be afraid to apologize. Keep it simple. Be sincere. Ditch the corporate language and speak from the heart. Do it really, really well, and you just make turn what was once a negative into something really positive. 

* Any reuse of this is forbidden without prior written consent. This content is protected by copyright law. 

Using Print to Support Inbound Marketing

One of the fast-growing categories of marketing is inbound marketing, or drawing prospects in using social media, SEO, blogs, and other online content. Using inbound marketing techniques, instead of you finding prospects, your prospects are finding you.  

According to HubSpot’s State of Inbound Marketing (2013) survey, nearly 60% of marketers have adopted some kind of inbound marketing strategy and more than 80% of those have integrated inbound marketing into their broader marketing goals. Nearly 50% of marketers have increased their inbound marketing budgets for 2013. 

What makes inbound marketing so valuable is that these respondents are pre-qualified. Because they found you, they have already demonstrated interest in your products or a certain level of trust in your company. Consequently, they are more likely to convert to sales than respondents to outbound marketing techniques. 

According to HubSpot, which coined the term “inbound marketing,” inbound strategies are especially effective for products with high dollar values, products that have long research cycles, and products that are knowledge-based. In these markets, consumers are more likely to purchase from a company that has demonstrated expertise.

This is where print can play a critical role. Although prospects may find you using online channels, you still have to convert them. Because print is a more trusted medium than e-media, printed collateral can provide the depth and trustworthiness of information prospects need to move them along the sales funnel and ultimately to help them make a purchasing decision. 

So coordinate your printed content to support your inbound marketing efforts. For anything promoted through Tweets, blogs, or social media, have four-color informational brochures, printed case studies or use studies, infographics, tri-folds, or other resources ready to go. Think about what information prospects will likely need to make a decision, then have those print materials available. 

Inbound marketing techniques helps draw prospects into the sales funnel. Print helps to convert them to sales. 

Want More Loyalty? Reward Your Customers!

Want more customer loyalty? Considering developing a loyalty program if you don’t already have one.  Not only do loyalty programs help you hang onto those customers you’ve worked so hard to get, but active participants spend more money with the companies whose loyalty programs they participate in. 

Consider the following data: [1] 

• Three-quarters of U.S. consumers used at least one loyalty program in 2011, up from 68 percent in 2009. (Colloquy)
• Seventy percent of persons from higher-income households ($125,000 +) are more loyal to companies that offer rewards programs. (Maritz)
• Customer spending is 46% higher with companies that offer reward card programs. (Total Research Corp & Custom Marketing Corp’s Loyalty Monitor Study)
• 60+% of U.S. households said that loyalty card programs were important in their shopping decisions. (AC Neilsen)

Loyalty programs can be personalized based on individual customer buying habits or you can send general alerts, discounts, and other rewards to all of your participating members. Rewards programs can also be implemented using direct mail, email, and mobile so you can match the marketing channel to the preferences of your customers. 

While many people associate loyalty programs primarily with coupons and discounts, research has shown that over-emphasis on these incentives can actually decrease engagement. For example, among the affluent, offers that give exclusive access or elite status (such as an opportunity to purchase a bottle of wine their own personal batch or receive advanced notice of rare, special-released bottles) can be more effective. 

When developing a loyalty program, think about what really motivates your customers and what is most likely to drive engagement. It may be different for different segments of your audience. Also consider matching marketing channels to customer preferences (direct mail, email, mobile). Like your rewards offers, it might be different for different segments of your audience.  

You’ve worked hard to bring in those new customers. Now keep them!

[1] http://www.loyaltyleaders.org/facts.php?view=all

Direct Mail More Effective Than You Think

We’re used to hearing that the average direct mail response rate is 1.0% - 1.5%. But according to a new study from the Pew Research Center (“Internet and American Life Project,” April 2013), this view needs to change. 

According to the project, the average response rate for direct mail is now 4.4% for both B2B and B2C mailings. In 2012, envelope-sized direct mail letters achieved a 3.4% response rate when mailed to a house list and a 1.28% response rate when mailed to a prospect list. 

In the study, the Pew Research Center also cites a recent Direct Mail Information Service report that more than three-quarters of direct mail is opened by the recipients. Nearly two-thirds (63%) of these recipients read the contents.

What is accounting for the growing response to direct mail? In part, it is less mail in people’s mailboxes. As email and other electronic media channels continue to proliferate, the mail that consumers do receive tends to stand out and get noticed.  There is also an increase in targeting, personalization, and customization that makes the mail more relevant. Relevant mail tends to get a better response. 

So next time you are about to cite the stat that direct mail has an average response rate of 1.5%, stop and think again. Direct mail has always been an effective marketing channel. As today’s direct mail techniques become more refined, its effectiveness is becoming that much greater. 

Good QR Code, Bad QR Code

QR Codes have been called the marketing tool that marketers love to hate. Why? Because so many seem to provide absolutely no value. 

Perhaps you scan a QR Code and it doesn’t go anywhere at all. Perhaps you get an error or the page to which the code points doesn’t exist. Perhaps you see a QR Code on a product you are interested in, so you scan the code and end up at a manufacturer’s non-mobile website where you get lost in a maze of links so dense that you forget why you went there in the first place. 

Does this mean that QR Codes are a waste of time? No. It means not enough thought was put into creating them.

When you are thinking about creating a QR Code, the first thing you should do is ask yourself, “What purpose do I want this code to serve? What do I want the person scanning it to get out of it?” If you don’t have a good answer, wait until you do. 

A great example of QR Code use is Best Buy. When you enter a Best Buy store, all of the products have QR Codes. When scanned, the codes take you to products specs, customer reviews, and other information not available on the shelf talkers or product packaging that will help them make a purchase decision. The QR Code puts the information in the customer’s hands at the very time that they need it — as they are making the decision. That’s a QR Code used well.

Contrast that with a QR Code placed on a lawnmower that takes you to the manufacturer’s corporate site. Or a QR Code on a “house for sale” sign that takes you to the realtor’s entire inventory. Those are QR Codes used poorly. It’s not the QR Code that’s the problem. It’s the lack of thought behind it. 

When creating QR Codes, think about the end use!

Reactivating Inactive Customers

Want more customers? Try reactivating customers who haven’t purchased from you in a while. These are people who have already shown an interest in your company and your products by purchasing from you in the past.  When looking to boost sales, they are a natural place to start.

There are two ways you can approach these customers. 

First is to simply attempt to re-engage them with discounts, special offers, and surveys to find out whether they are still engaged with your brand at any level. If they are no longer purchasing from you, you want to find out why. You can use static re-engagement mailings, personalized re-engagement mailings, or personalized URLs for feedback and surveys. 

Second is to use outside data resources to gain insight into inactive customer behavior and thereby increase your chances of re-engaging with them. 

Let’s say you know that your inactive customer purchased from you 90 days ago, but before that, it was 240 days ago. You might also know the size, color, and item purchased. A list agency like Epsilon can often give you significant additional information on these customers. For example, it might tell you that this same customer purchased 35 days ago from a competitor, has purchased seven times in the past year with your competitors, spends an average of $150 with each order, and that his or her last purchase was 15 days ago. 

That is tremendous insight that can help you understand how to re-engage with that customer again. In fact, Epsilon found that while response rates to rental lists averages 1.2%, response rates from house files averages 2.68%. It might take a little more work, but the return is far better.

So before looking outside for new customers, consider rekindling relationships with inactive customers. Use your existing data and additional third-party data to guide your messaging to re-engage those customers and get them purchasing from you over and over again. 

Personalization Creates 30% Lift

Looking for proof that personalization works? Consider the case of one historical museum that used personalization to create a lift in donations of 30%

For the past decade, the museum had been using direct mail as its primary way to solicit donations. After years of success, however, effectiveness was starting to wane. The museum wondered if personalizing the message to each recipient would breathe new life into its efforts.  

To find out, the museum split its mailing in half.  To the first half, it sent a traditional static newsletter. To the second half, it sent a personalized newsletter. Personalization included the person’s name, the state in which they lived, the number of charter members in that state, and prefilled the response forms to make sending in a donation easier. The results?

• Among those actively contributing, response rates increased 30%.
• Among less active but still donating members, response rates increased 25%. 
• Among both active and less active members, the value of the donations increased.

Why did this campaign work?

In this case, personalization taps into the recipient’s sense of responsibility to the organization. “They know me — they are relying on me,” not just as an anonymous donor, but as someone the museum relies on by name.  When you call someone by name, there is a responsibility that comes with that, especially in the world of fundraising.  

Including the number of charter members in the recipient’s state also taps into the sense of collective responsibility. “Look how many other people are deeply supporting this cause. I should be more committed, as well.”

Finally, the prefilled form removed one of the barriers to responding to any campaign—the need to fill out a form, address an envelope, and add a stamp. If all the recipient has to do is drop a check in the envelope and put it in the mailbox, that alone can elevate response.

Whether you are a nonprofit organization or not, the lessons are clear. Call your customers by name, tap into collective responsibility (or collective participation in some kind of benefit), and make it easy to respond. Then watch your response rates soar.

Smart Strategies for Maximizing Print

All around us, we hear about the benefits of going paperless. When it comes to marketing, that’s just not a smart move. When our inboxes are clogged with spam and any company can look big and successful online, print carries a gravitas that inspires confidence and trust.

Now is not the time to give up print. But smart marketers are making their print contacts even more powerful.

1. Focus on recent customers. Clients who have purchased from you recently know who you are. They just need a simple reminder, such as a postcard or sell sheet, to give them a reason to buy from you again. If you’re looking to stretch your marketing dollars, focus on recent customers first.

2. Know your top customers. Pay particular attention to retaining customers with the highest profit margin. Then target prospects with similar profiles with the presumption that you will be able to serve them profitably as well. If you don’t know who your top customers are, a proactive investment in data analysis can reap big returns.

3. Be relevant. You can only satisfy buyer motivations if you understand what your prospects love and hate—their hearts’ true desires and what keeps them awake at night. Knowing your customers and engaging in sincere dialogue about what they want and why they want it will pay off in repeat sales and quality referrals

Print marketing is evolving. Success is no longer based on trying to get a static, “same to all” message in front of as many people as possible. It’s about marketing smart and marketing relevant, and using the tangible, confidence-building medium of print to its maximum advantage.

Make Graphics and Color Sell!

When you think about marketing that packs a punch, your thoughts most likely turn to the list, the pitch, and the incentives. But when it comes to the design, how much thought do you put into your images and the color of your graphics? As long as they look good, is that enough? No! One of the secrets to powerhouse selling is knowing how images and color influence the buying decision. 

Graphics have better recall than words, so they are a critical part of the mix. Your target audience will remember the images, even if they don’t remember the text, so your images have to do more than look pretty. You need to select images that communicate the same message you are communicating through your copy. 

Color is an emotional trigger, as well. Every shade has both a positive and a negative connotation, however, so it needs to be selected carefully.  For example . . .

• Red is a dominant color that might successfully evoke an image of love and passion, but it might tap into the darker feelings of rage and violence, too. 

• Green can stimulate thoughts of money and self-actualization, but greed and envy are associated with this hue, as well. 

• Yellow is associated with happiness and joy, but if you are marketing products to men, it can be seen as childish and inappropriate for merchandise associated with prestige. 

Great marketing starts with a relevant list and a great message, but they only tell half the story. Pair a great list and powerful message with an understanding of the critical roles of graphics and color and your efforts will be outstanding.

Tough Economic Times Need Proactive Marketing

The economy is bouncing back, but marketing budgets are still tight. Are you tempted to slash your print marketing budget to save a few dollars? If so, you are likely to be counterproductive.

Difficult economic times are about survival. The more visible your company is, the more confident your customers and prospects will be that you are the company to trust. When you stop marketing, you create uncertainty about the strength of your business. You also open the door for your best customers to become your competitor’s best prospects.

When printing and mailing in any economic environment, here are three tips that will help you get the most out of your marketing dollars:

1. Craft your message from a position of strength. When times are tough, people don’t stop buying. They just become more selective. Establish yourself as a strategic business partner who offers the most relevant products at the greatest value based on quality and performance. Add credibility to your message with customer testimonials and other sources of validation, such as certifications and awards.

2. Exploit the weaknesses of the competition. Your best marketing campaign is worthless if the competitor down the street is closing the sale. Design print materials to persuade prospects not only to buy the product or service you’re offering, but to buy it from you. Determine what your competitors are doing (or not doing) that can help you position your company, product, or offer more favorably.

3. Give prospects a reason to buy now. No matter how magical your marketing message is, fewer people tend to respond when budgets are tight. Spur prospects to action with a limited time offer, such as a discount or complimentary service. Fear is a part of the buying decision. Guarantees are an effective way to ease buyer doubt.

Companies with aggressive marketing, along with superior products and value, prevail in times of both prosperity and recession, while those with timid marketing, inferior products, and exaggerated marketing claims fail. Whether it’s branding, prospecting, or customer retention, invest in smart marketing and enjoy a vastly stronger market presence as the economy bounces back.

Are You Benefitting from Personalized URLs?

Have you joined the ranks of marketers benefitting from personalized URLs? If not, why?  

Personalized URLs are a highly effective way to increase response rates and gather more information about your customers. 

Personalized URL campaigns use the ability of digital presses to create personalized URLs that send recipients to their own, fully personalized pages (www.bobsbuildings.com/john_smith.htm). There, recipients generally navigate a customized “mini-site” that includes a personalized landing page, a survey page, an information page, and a thank-you page. Once the user responds, the data is appended back into your database for use in future targeting. 

Although this sounds complicated, it isn’t. These applications can be template-driven, using something as simple as a mailing list. Setup time can be a matter of hours—or less. The magic is in the software.

While personalized URLs do require databases, they can be successful with as little as a mailing list. Campaigns often start with some kind of basic demographic or other segmentation, and once people respond, the software gathers the data and appends it back automatically so you can use it for more detailed targeting and personalization later. Thus, personalized URLs don’t require detailed marketing databases. They become gateways to creating them. 

Indeed, research shows that the more marketers learn from their personalized URL surveys, the more effective their campaigns become. In an analysis of its customers’ multi-channel marketing campaigns, for example, one personalized URL software supplier found that in 2009, marketers using its system achieved a 5.1% visit rate and 3.8% response rate on average. But in 2010, just one year later, they were achieving visit rates of 6.5% and response rates of 4.5%.

Personalized URLs are a terrific tool for generating responses and learning about your customers . . . and the more you use them (and learn from them), the more effective they become. 

Use Psychology to Boost Sales!

Guess what? No one wants to buy your product or service. What they really want is an answer to one of their needs, wants, desires and fears. 

Here’s how you can put this to work for you: You can strengthen your market position by learning how these psychological factors, along with the psychological impact of your graphics and marketing message, affect your target audience. Change your strategy from marketing features and benefits to the promise that you can satisfy at least one of these psychological motivations and you will create a winning marketing strategy.

Say you are a manufacturer of cologne, and 90% of customers say that they purchased your product because it smells good. So you pour marketing dollars into promoting the best-smelling scent on the planet, but pallets sit unsold in your warehouse. Why? Because we often make purchases for emotional reasons, such as acceptance and association, then justify them with a rational explanation. The challenge for marketers is unearthing those secret reasons for making a purchase.

In the example above, the hidden impetus is that cologne makes the wearer feel more attractive. Change your marketing pitch from how good your cologne smells to how it fulfills the purchaser’s desire to be alluring and — voila! — the product flies off the shelves. 

The trick is to thread your marketing promise into every element, including product image, advertising and promotion strategy, product packaging and display, and even your pricing. Use the design and copy to quickly lead the reader to how the product can satisfy one of their needs, wants, desires, or fears. Graphics will have better recall than words, so choose images that are harmonious with your copy. 

You can create print marketing that is well-designed and well-written, but that still fails miserably if it’s not credible. Pair a good product or service with a focused marketing strategy based on an understanding of what truly motivates your customers, and you will dominate your market.

Personalizing Without Getting Too Personal

These days, consumers expect marketing offers to be targeted to their needs and preferences. If I like to sail, send me sailing coupons, not golf coupons. If I’m single, send me promotions on vacation trips to Italy or the Caribbean, not Disney World.

Personalization is a powerful way to gain long-term loyalty from customers who appreciate that you are sending them offers for products and services they actually want and need. But there are some warning stories out there, too. Take a hard-learned lesson from Target.

Newly expecting moms are loyal shoppers and voluminous buyers. Getting a foothold early is highly profitable and retailers know it.

That’s why Target has been scouring the information gathered from its credit card holders to figure out how to predict whether a woman is expecting, based on her purchasing patterns. Using what a woman buys and when, Target has been able to assign “pregnancy scores” (likelihood of pregnancy) and send suspected mothers-to-be direct mail pieces with coupons for products appropriate to the estimated stage of their pregnancies.

This is a great idea . . . except that some women may not want their pregnancies exposed. In one case, a teenager’s father became irate when his daughter started receiving offers for diapers and maternity clothing. He called his local Target store, furious. What were they trying to do? Promote teen pregnancy? But he was forced to apologize when he discovered that his daughter was expecting. The story blew up in the business publications—including Forbes, where it got 26,000+ Tweets and 28,000+ Facebook likes. 

So while Target has continued its scoring for likely new mothers, it has made its approach more subtle.

The moral of the story is, most customers want their offers to be personalized, but it’s best to be careful how you present them. After all, to quote an old adage, just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

So how do you personalize an offer when the product could be sensitive? 

First is timing. A well-timed offer (such as a mortgage refinance offer timed to land just before a mortgage holder’s interest rate goes up) can be even more powerful than personalizing the text. Second is a more subtle use of context. Target changed its targeting to blend baby products in with other more generic products to avoid the appearance of profiling, even though it was.

When you’re personalizing, think about what you can learn from your customers that will help you create and time offers in a way that is most relevant to them. But also think about how you present the information. How you “serve it up” can be as important to your success as the offer that you actually make.

Keeping Great Customers On Board

You’ve sent out a terrific marketing campaign. You’ve received a superb response. You’ve converted prospects to buyers. Now what?

“What do you mean?” you ask.

After all, you got the sale. Customers love you. As long as you continue to provide good products, reasonable prices, and great customer service, they’ll stay your customers as long as you don’t mess things up.

That might sound reasonable, but in today’s competitive world, it doesn’t work that way. You’ve worked hard to get that customer, but just like any relationship, you have to put in effort to make it last.

Think about your car. You can’t just fill it with gas once a week and expect to keep it for 100,000 miles. You need to change the oil. Do routine maintenance. Otherwise, you’ll seize the engine or have to dump in thousands of dollars to fix problems that could have been prevented. Likewise, customers need attention and care if you want to keep them over the long haul. We might call this “customer
after-care.” 

This is one of the areas where 1:1 print communications can make a huge difference. There are some simple ways to keep customers happy, keep them engaged, and retain them over the long term.

Here are some ideas.

• Customer newsletters. Tell customer stories. Talk about new products. Provide insight they wouldn’t otherwise have access to. Speak to them by name and customize the content to be more relevant to their individual needs.
• Customer satisfaction surveys. Ask them how you are doing. It’s a great way to let people know you value their business. Use personalized URLs to make this easy and append the data back into your marketing database automatically.
• Personalized notes and cards. Do you know your customers’ birthdays? How about the date they first became customers? Send them personalized notes and cards as a way to let them know you care.
• Tips & tricks postcards. Once in a while, offer some free advice. If you’re a landscaping company, you might suggest the easiest care perennials for the upcoming season. If you’re a real estate office, you might suggest the best neutral colors for resale.
• Coupons & freebies. Send a coupon for a discount or a freebie “just because.” It continually re-engages your customers and helps them see the value in their relationship with you. 

Client retention is critical to your bottom-line success. Be a company that does this well, and you’ll reap the benefits of great brand recognition and long-term customer relationships.

Spice It Up!

Are you looking for ways to spice up your direct mail campaigns? Even if your response rates remain high, are you looking to freshen things up a little? Here are a few ways you can update your direct mailings and give them new appeal.

1. Update the package. 

Are you using the same envelopes you have for years? If so, try something different. Change the color. Change the size. Add a personalized teaser on the front (“John, check this out!”). If you are selling high-value products or services, consider really shaking things up with dimensional mail or novelty envelopes that look like UPS packages or USPS Priority Mail. 

2. Tweak your text. 

Still using the same marketing text from last year? Try another direction. If you’ve been using a dry, informational style, insert some humor.  If you’ve been sending short, punchy one-liners, try adding more informational text. 

3. Freshen up the images. 

How long have you been using that same picture of your headquarters? Is your head shot in the lower right-hand corner 10 years old? Have a photographer take a new company photo. Upload a current head shot with a fabulous smile. Or maybe you just want some new images as backgrounds or illustration. Today’s selection of royalty-free imagery is professional, full of variety, and inexpensive. Try something new and see what happens! 

4. Add a new variable. 

If you are personalizing your mailings, why not add a new variable? If you’ve been personalizing by name and gender, add age bracket or income. This gives you a whole new way to relate to customers and increase the relevance of the message. Don’t have the data? Adding variables can be as easy as a simple data append. You give us the names, we order the data. It’s that simple. 

5. Try a new offer. 

What incentive have you been using to get people to respond? 15% discount? If so, try 10% or 25%. Go crazy and try BOGO. How are you encouraging people to log into their personalized URLs? Entrance into a sweepstakes for a gift card? Try a set of concert tickets instead.

Experiment with new approaches and see what works. Mixing things up also tells people you are a progressive company, always growing and looking to improve. So get creative. Step outside the box and see what happens. 

Data Doesn’t Make It Personal

Have you ever received a “personalized” mailing that didn’t seem so personal? 

Maybe you’re a tennis nut, and you received a sporting goods catalog personalized with your name on the front cover, plastered with an image of a brand new set of golf clubs. Or you received an incentive to bring in your car for a tune-up six months after your tune-up was actually due. Maybe the data itself was correct, but your name was spelled wrong. Or the marketer addressed the mailing to “Francis.” You hate the name Francis. That’s why everyone calls you Fran. 

Data, by itself, doesn’t make a mailing relevant or compelling. Data is just that — data. It’s a variable in a database field. Each is merely a piece of information that can be used well or it can be used poorly. Or it can be downright wrong. 

This is why personalization and relevance are two different things. Personalization is simply the use of data to create unique pieces for every individual in a database. If those variables are not used in a way that increases the level of interest and engagement with the target audience, it’s not relevant. Relevance is created by sending a piece that means something to the person receiving it. 

In fact, a mailing doesn’t have to be personalized to be relevant.  You can create relevance by segmenting your database and creating mailings relevant to each segment. For example, when you send a mailing to all inactive customers with, “Please come back! We miss you!” along with a 25% discount, that’s creating relevance even if everyone in that mailing receives the same piece. Likewise, if you market different insurance plans to households with children than you do to retirees, you are increasing relevance even if you don’t do any personalization at all, even by name.  

The goal of great personalized communications is to do both—segment the mailing by gender, company size, market vertical, or some other demographic—then add relevant personalization on top of that. If you’re targeting by market vertical, for example, you might personalize by name, then adjust the copy and images based on the recipient’s job title. Even if you are marketing the same product (say, security systems to schools), you’ll focus on different features and benefits when speaking to the chief financial officer than you will when speaking to the director of facilities. 

So before personalizing any mailing, ask yourself, “Why am I choosing the variables I am? How am I going to use them effectively? Do I need to add any other variables (append my database) to improve my targeting efforts?” This way, you don’t run the risk of sending a personalized mailing without it actually being personal.